Wednesday, October 21, 2015

Hitler, al-Husseini and Hungarian Jewry

(this post has been, and will be, updated)

Prime Minister Binyamim Netanyahu is under fire:

The Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, has attracted a storm of criticism for an incendiary speech [only The Guardian would use 'incendiary' in a Holocaust-related story against a Jew - YM] in which he accused the second world war Palestinian grand mufti of Jerusalem of “inspiring the Holocaust”. The comments* – made by Netanyahu in a speech to the World Zionist Congress in Jerusalem in the context of the current violence between Israelis and Palestinians– were condemned as incorrect by historians and by Israeli opposition leader Isaac Herzog for trivialising the Holocaust. On the Palestinian side, senior official Saeb Erekat described the remarks as absolving Adolf Hitler.In his speech Netanyahu purported to describe a meeting between Haj Amin al-Husseini and Hitler in November 1941. “Hitler didn’t want to exterminate the Jews at the time, he wanted to expel the Jews. And Haj Amin al-Husseini went to Hitler and said: ‘If you expel them, they’ll all come here [to Palestine].’” According to Netanyahu, Hitler then asked: “What should I do with them?” and the mufti replied: “Burn them.”

*"And this attack and other attacks on the Jewish community in 1920, 1921, 1929, were instigated by a call of the Mufti of Jerusalem Haj Amin al-Husseini, who was later sought for war crimes in the Nuremberg trials because he had a central role in fomenting the final solution. He flew to Berlin. Hitler didn’t want to exterminate the Jews at the time, he wanted to expel the Jews. And Haj Amin al-Husseini went to Hitler and said, "If you expel them, they'll all come here." "So what should I do with them?" he asked. He said, "Burn them." And he was sought in, during the Nuremberg trials for prosecution. He escaped it and later died of cancer, after the war, died of cancer in Cairo. But this is what Haj Amin al-Husseini said. He said, ":The Jews seek to destroy the Temple Mount." My grandfather in 1920 seeks to destroy…? Sorry, the al-Aqsa Mosque. So this lie is about a hundred years old. It fomented many, many attacks. The Temple Mount stands. The a l-Aqsa Mosque stands. But the lie stands too, persists."and

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sparked public uproar when on Wednesday he claimed that the Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, was the one who planted the idea of the extermination of European Jewry in Adolf Hitler's mind. The Nazi ruler, Netanyahu said, had no intention of killing the Jews, but only to expel them.

"Even the son of a historian needs to get history right," Herzog wrote. "Yesterday, Netanyahu told the Zionist Congress that the Nazis didn't want to exterminate the Jews, but instead were seeking to expel them, and that it was the mufti, Haj Amin al-Husseini, who gave the tyrant Hitler the idea [to commit genocide]."

"This is a dangerous distortion of history, and I demand that Netanyahu correct this immediately since he is trivialiazing the Holocaust," Herzog wrote. "[Netanyahu] is minimizing Nazism and the role played by that awful tyrant, Adolf Hitler, in the terrible tragedy that befell our people in the Holocaust," the opposition chief wrote. "[The premier's comments] play into the hands of Holocaust deniers and pits them against the Palestinians."

Zevaha Galon of the left-wing Meretz party said Netanyahu's remarks show "the depths to which this man has sunk."

Being that the Mufti was a Nazi sympathizer from 1933 and that contacts between the Mufti and Nazi leaders preceded by years the 1941 decision, I really do not think anyone can exclude a possibility that the Mufti indicated that he demanded of the Nazis to deal with the Jewish Question on European soil and not allow any more Jews into the Palestine Mandate.

But more importantly, the fact is that the Mufti explicitly contributed to the 1944 demise of Hungarian Jewry by a fiery extermination method.

'The Mufti was instrumental in the decision to exterminate the Jews of Europe. The importance of his role must not be ignored. The Mufti repeatedly proposed to the authorities, primarily Hitler, Ribbentropp and Himmler, to exterminate the Jews of Europe. He considered it a suitable solution for the Palestinian question'.

Eichmann's deputy, added:'The Mufti was one of the instigators of the systematic extermination of European Jewry and was a partner and adviser to Eichmann and Hitler for carrying out this plan'.

The attempt by certain scholars and people to be apologists for the key and important role of Haj Amin al-Husseini, is clear. Many other researchers cite this testimony and others regarding the role of Haj Amin al Husseini.

Unfortunately, Haj Amin al-Husseini is still a revered figure in Palestinian society, he appears in textbooks and it is taught that he is one of the founding fathers of the nation, and this incitement that started then with him, inciting the murder of Jews - continues. Not in the same format, but in a different one and this is the root of the problem. To stop the murders, it is necessary to stop the incitement.

What is important is to recognize the historical facts and not ignore them, not then and not today".

in June 1941, Hitler briefly mentioned his vague hope of “exploiting the Arab Freedom Movement” after the Soviets were defeated, and in November he agreed to meet Amin al-Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, to talk about his “uncompromising fight against the Jews”.

During 1938, a booklet Muhammad Sabri edited, Islam, Judentum, Bolschewismus (Islam, Jewry, Bolshevism), was published in Berlin by Junker-Duennhaupt [Dünnhaupt]. Sabri’s booklet included Hajj Amin el-Husseini’s 1937 declaration—also deemed by some as a “fatwa” (an Islamic religious ruling)—appealing to the worldwide Muslim umma. El-Husseini’s declaration was extracted and reprinted, separately, by the Nazi regime as Islam und Judentum (Islam and Jewry), and distributed to Muslim SS units in Bosnia, Croatia, and the Soviet Union. As I detailed in a 2103 monograph, which provided, and riveted upon, the first full English translation of el-Husseini’s 1937 “religious edict” (“fatwa’) about the Jews (available here; and as a free pdf here), the former Mufti of Jerusalem exclusively invoked traditionalist Islamic themes, familiar to the Muslim masses, to incite their annihilationist Islamic Jew-hatred. Reiterating foundational Jew-hating motifs from the Koran itself, and embodied by the inflammatory words and murderous actions of Islam’s prophet Muhammad (in the “hadith” or traditions, and earliest piousMuslim biographies of Muhammad), el-Husseini’s traditional Islamic Jew-hatred has remained a staple of contemporary Palestinian Muslim religious discourse, through the present.

___________________

Middle East Forum scholar, historian and author Wolfgang G. Schwanitz added, “It is a historical fact that the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem al-Hajj Amin al-Husaini was an accomplice whose collaboration with Adolf Hitler played an important role in the Holocaust. He was the foremost extra-European adviser in the process to destroy the Jews of Europe.”

Although Schwanitz heard for the first time the dialogue between Hitler and al-Husaini as told by Netanyahu, Hitler was the key architect of the Final Solution. But indeed, it is absurd to ignore the role played by al-Hajj Amin al-Husaini, a war criminal, for encouraging and urging Hitler and other leading Nazis to exterminate European Jewry. According to the foremost expert on the ties between Nazis and Islamists, there is much evidence that al-Husaini's primary goal was blocking all of the ways out of Europe. He pushed Hitler to slam the last doors of a burning house shut.

Rubin and Schwanitz based their book on original German documents and minutes of meetings. Everybody is talking about the November meeting between Hitler and Husseini but Barry listed meetings in March and June 1941.The Mufti pushed for a total ban on Jewish emigration during these meetings. This led Hitler to search for other ways to get rid of the Jews.

About Me

American born, my wife and I moved to Israel in 1970. We have lived at Shiloh together with our family since 1981. I was in the Betar youth movement in the US and UK. I have worked as a political aide to Members of Knesset and a Minister during 1981-1994, lectured at the Academy for National Studies 1977-1994, was director of Israel's Media Watch 1995-2000 and currently, I work at the Menachem Begin Heritage Center in Jerusalem. I was a guest media columnist on media affairs for The Jerusalem Post, op-ed contributor to various journals and for six years had a weekly media show on Arutz 7 radio. I serve as an unofficial spokesperson for the Jewish Communities in Judea & Samaria.